Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson

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Well I just finished the Mistborn trilogy.
I'll start by saying that I enjoyed Elantris more. I thought that book was magnificent.
Now, as to mistborn - I liked it a lot, especially the first one. Sanderson has a tendency to write really slow and then suddenly speed things up in the last 150-200 pages, and by Hero of Ages it became excruciating! It seemed like people in the books were SO DUMB and didn't understand what the hell was going on while it happened to them. I mean, really, it didn't seem odd to Vin that Ruin became suddenly silent in mid sentence the MOMENT she fired her earring at Marsh?!
I appreciated he wasn't too attached to characters so that he killed them along the books...
I AM however confused as to who ended up being the Hero of Ages. At the end it sounded like Sazed was, but there were parts of the prophecies that didn't add up. For example, it was said that the Hero will lead an army on allomancers, which Elend did, not Sazed. Vin filled parts of the prophecies, as Sazed said himself...
Is it possible the Heroes are in fact 3 and not a single one? I mean, the book had preservation, balance and ruin. Maybe each one was a hero representing one of those 3 powers. Sazed was balance, Elend was Ruin, using Ruin's body (Atium) against the coloss, and Vin was preservation, taking on the mists?
 
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Keep going and read the Alloy of Law, in my opinion its a massive leap in story and the best of the bunch. Cant wait for the next one.
 

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Oh hey look, there's a thread for this. :look:

I recently finished the trilogy as well.
Some of my thoughts... of course Elend just had to become a Mistborn and of course he just had to become the bestest most strongest Mistborn. :rolleyes :x To me that just read a bit Mary Sue-ish.

Aulrick. OMG I KEPT THINKING VIN YOU ARE SO STUPID. :laugh: I felt the exact same way about the earring. I kept wanting to yell at her, "Take it out already!"

Also, I think the point was that Sazed was the Hero of Ages. He did lead the group, technically, in Spook's city, and really any of Kelsier's crew could have been considered to be "leading an army of Allomancers" at one point or another. I actually like your idea of there being three Heroes for Ruin, Preservation, and balance. It would definitely fit in with the overarching theme of the book, and explains why none of them seem to fit all of the prophecies perfectly (although, then again, that could also be explained by Ruin changing things). I did find the specific line "He became God" a tiny bit cheesy, though. It was interesting to me how the books progressed from a fantasy to a very religious fantasy. The last book certainly had a different tone than the first book.

I think I liked the first one the best. It works really well as a standalone, and is a sort of a classic bildungsroman for Vin, which I always tend to enjoy. And none of the other books have Kelsier. I really like all of the stuff about the Kandra in the third book, though. The second book is just sort of an in between to me, and, while it's good, it's a middle.
 
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Aulrick. OMG I KEPT THINKING VIN YOU ARE SO STUPID. :laugh: I felt the exact same way about the earring. I kept wanting to yell at her, "Take it out already!"

I know, right?!

It was interesting to me how the books progressed from a fantasy to a very religious fantasy. The last book certainly had a different tone than the first book.

It felt very ANTI religious to me, at times. Thou honestly Sazed was unbareable in the last book. I mean, really. Get a grip!

I think I liked the first one the best. It works really well as a standalone, and is a sort of a classic bildungsroman for Vin, which I always tend to enjoy. And none of the other books have Kelsier. I really like all of the stuff about the Kandra in the third book, though. The second book is just sort of an in between to me, and, while it's good, it's a middle.

Yeah, the first was definetly the best. I mean, when Kelsier fought the inquisitor I was like NO WAY MAN! That was AWESOME!
I really liked how he built the ending though - with everything falling just right, even if it was a little obvious for example that Elent wants to use all the Atium as he did, or that Preservation destroyed his own consciousness so that a human can kill Ruin, which he could never do. But the part in the end with Sazed using all the religions to rebuild the world, that was nice.
 

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Yeah, I liked the ending as well :)

I mean the part about Sazed using all the old religions to fix the world, not necessarily the fact that he became god :look:
Other than that, I LOVE the first book, the other two was OK...
 

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I really liked the first book, and I enjoyed but did not love the third book.

The second book, on the other hand...

It's been probably two years since I finished it, and I am still pissed about how Sanderson handled Tindwyl's death. First, I'm annoyed because there was finally a second major female character in the series, but of course she dies. Of course she does. Second, I am annoyed that, with all of the deaths of major characters in the book, she is the only one who doesn't get a death scene. Everyone else, we get to see their deaths coming. Tindwyl? Sazed just finds her body later. Which brings me to, third, I am so extremely angry that Tindwyl's death became all about Sazed and his angst. She was an interesting character, the only female character besides Vin who did anything important ever at all in the first two books, and Sanderson fridged her for Sazed's character development. It's lazy writing and one of the more annoying sexist tropes in fantasy fiction, and I really expected better from Sanderson.
 

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Keep going and read the Alloy of Law, in my opinion its a massive leap in story and the best of the bunch. Cant wait for the next one.

The Alloy of Law books are definately Brandon having fun with his world. Also the next one sounds very good, from the part of a chapter I heard at JordanCon this year :evil
 
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It's been probably two years since I finished it, and I am still pissed about how Sanderson handled Tindwyl's death. First, I'm annoyed because there was finally a second major female character in the series, but of course she dies. Of course she does. Second, I am annoyed that, with all of the deaths of major characters in the book, she is the only one who doesn't get a death scene. Everyone else, we get to see their deaths coming. Tindwyl? Sazed just finds her body later. Which brings me to, third, I am so extremely angry that Tindwyl's death became all about Sazed and his angst. She was an interesting character, the only female character besides Vin who did anything important ever at all in the first two books, and Sanderson fridged her for Sazed's character development. It's lazy writing and one of the more annoying sexist tropes in fantasy fiction, and I really expected better from Sanderson.

Well...
Truth be told that didn't bother me much, because her importance was always in the development of other characters anyway, especially Elend but also Sazed even before she died. I also feel it was important that we didn't know HOW she died, because that enhances Sazed sense of loss. With most of the other deaths, someone was there to see and know how it happened. With her we'll never know - did she suffer? Was she brave? Did she fight back? Not knowing is the worst part, I think, especially for a keeper.
Also calling a book with a strong, saving the world female protagonist is a little strange to me :pleased-1:

I mean the part about Sazed using all the old religions to fix the world, not necessarily the fact that he became god :look:

I took it more to mean that he became A god, not God as we know it (since Ruin and Preservation also called themselves Gods)... Though now that I think about it, that last bit DOES resemble the bible's creation story somewhat... Interesting, I haven't thought of that before.
 
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I enjoyed the Mistborn series very much. I read them a couple of times :) I just like how the magic system is so different than the typical magic system :) You know how they consume metals and all is very interesting to me.

Great read in my eyes! I have recommended it to a few people who say they do not like to read, just because I thought it was an fun, short read.
 
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Well...
Truth be told that didn't bother me much, because her importance was always in the development of other characters anyway, especially Elend but also Sazed even before she died. I also feel it was important that we didn't know HOW she died, because that enhances Sazed sense of loss. With most of the other deaths, someone was there to see and know how it happened. With her we'll never know - did she suffer? Was she brave? Did she fight back? Not knowing is the worst part, I think, especially for a keeper.
Also calling a book with a strong, saving the world female protagonist is a little strange to me :pleased-1:

I wasn't calling the book sexist. I'm calling the particular trope of having a female character that exists and dies only for the growth of male characters sexist. It's a pervasive trope in fantasy literature to have female characters who exist only for the growth of male characters rather than as characters in their own right, and it was especially disappointing to see it played out in a series that does have a strong, saving the world protagonist. Like I said, I expected more from Sanderson.

And really, Mistborn has a ton of well-fleshed-out characters, so it's also disappointing that only one of them is a woman, even if she's the main character. A series with a protagonist like Vin really ought to be able to pass the Bechdel Test. :p
 
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It definitely would have been cool to see some more female characters that kicked butt! I haven't read the books in a while and to tell you the truth I do not even think I noticed that there weren't a lot of female characters. I will have to put this series on the list to re-listen to at work :)
 
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At the risk of sounding some what sexists - I'm fine with women not usually having major roles in fantasy novels.
Most fantasy is based on medieval times. I really don't think that I need to remind women here of the treatment women got during that time.
In fact, those novels in which women have bigger parts are when they get some sort of powers, like Vin in Mistborn, or Channeling in the Wheel of Time, which shows that women can be just as strong as men. As sexist as that sounds, that's very much how women were viewed in those days. That's why stories of warrior women are both so rare AND special, like Amazons, because those were so outside the norm.
Now, I don't think we should encourage that kind of thinking in today's women, but I also don't think we should distort past ages just to avoid showing sexism for fear it might catch on. On the contrary - showing the difference between then and now is a good thing. For me at least.

But that's a little off topic for Mistborn :look:
 
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At the risk of sounding some what sexists - I'm fine with women not usually having major roles in fantasy novels.
Most fantasy is based on medieval times. I really don't think that I need to remind women here of the treatment women got during that time.
In fact, those novels in which women have bigger parts are when they get some sort of powers, like Vin in Mistborn, or Channeling in the Wheel of Time, which shows that women can be just as strong as men. As sexist as that sounds, that's very much how women were viewed in those days. That's why stories of warrior women are both so rare AND special, like Amazons, because those were so outside the norm.
Now, I don't think we should encourage that kind of thinking in today's women, but I also don't think we should distort past ages just to avoid showing sexism for fear it might catch on. On the contrary - showing the difference between then and now is a good thing. For me at least.

But that's a little off topic for Mistborn :look:


And any fantasy that is merely "based on medieval times" and can't break new ground for fear of "distorting past ages" is a book that I have zero interest in reading.

Fantasy has come a long way since that.
 

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I wouldn't say Mistborn is based in medieval times, though. It's definitely early industrial-- there is at least one factory (canning) and lots of mills. Besides, Sanderson creates such unique worlds in his books that I don't think that really applies. I will say that I do think he is pretty decent at writing female characters that are deeper than stereotypes, and that's one of the things I like about him. He's not afraid to have a female protagonist because he can write them, like in the Stormlight Archive.

However, that being said, I do find it a bit hard to believe that there were no other women besides Kelsier's wife on his crew, and it did bug me that people like Ham's wife never even appeared (which really bugged me, by the way. I kept thinking we were going to meet her and we didn't!) Another female character I quite liked that got killed off was Elend's former fiancee. She was a cool bad guy. Breeze's girlfriend was interesting as well.

Although I have to say it says a lot that I can't remember their names, but only who they were in relation to who they were in a relationship with. :facepalm for myself.

But yeah, this is sort of why it annoyed me that Elend became Mistborn. It just felt like that made the story more about him than Vin, and made him better than Vin. Which he wan't, in a lot of ways, so it annoyed me less when I kept reading, but at the beginning of the third book I pretty much just kept rolling my eyes at him.
 

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And any fantasy that is merely "based on medieval times" and can't break new ground for fear of "distorting past ages" is a book that I have zero interest in reading.

Fantasy has come a long way since that.
Though probably the biggest at the moment is Song of Ice and Fire, which is very medieval. The Elderlings realm also. Malazan world is one of the few that isn't, and that isn't set in an industrial world.
 

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I realy enjoyed moments, when I found Sanderson playing with language like with his character Zane.

I was over the moon, when I found out that Zane was insane because something(body?) was in Zane.
Insane/InZane. - Oh, how I love such languagethings. :D
 
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Theres currently a limited edition 10th anniversary edition of mistborn being touted, im hoping they release the ebook version like they did elantris.
 
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